A review by elatedbooks
The Appeal by Janice Hallett

mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

“A man can hide a world behind words.”

Interestingly enough most of the book is actually pre murder although I’m not sure how effective this actually was. I understand the trajectory it takes as it’s designed to drip feed us info however I feel like the point of using the epistolary form is that the reader can play detective. To this end it would have been much more effective to know the full cast list at the beginning (they only have the theatre groups’ names when really I needed explanations of who the obscure people that only pop up once or twice were) & the specific questions the detective sets out for his juniors. 

REGARDLESS I think the biggest flaw is that the solution isn’t guessable & is actually pretty outlandish. So while I enjoyed the reading experience on this, it fails on the main marketing point which I feel was to be able to ‘play along’. 
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